SINGLE SNOW
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Following agreement between the SMMT, the IRTE and the RHA, we are moving closer than ever in 2000 toward a Commercial Vehicle show representing the broadest range of transport equipment exhibitors. This is the first time since 1976 that the industry has had the opportunity of putting on its best possible presentation unencumbered by cars.
Could the SMMT have realised, when it embarked on the combined car and commercial show in 1978, that it was consigning the CV industry to almost a quarter of a century of industry grievances over dilution of marketing effort— and lack of a show of sufficient status or variety of exhibitors to attract significant numbers of overseas visitors?
Hopefully the industry can now put that behind it and the new show can go from strength to strength, absorbing even more of the small factionalist offshoots that have sprung up to soak up more of everyone's marketing budget—assuming the Chancellor leaves us with a transport industry at all.
My only plea is that the organisers don't commit the ultimate sin—delusions of grandeur, the result of which would surely be cost escalation, reduction of exhibitor numbers and the carousel starting to turn all over again.
Mark Carrington, King Trailers, Market Harborough, Leics.